News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs.
1. Better understanding irregular warfare in competition
2. Rising in the East: The Evolution of the Islamic State in the Philippines
3. How Taiwan Plans to Stay (Mostly) Covid-Free
4. Exercise Deep Water: Working the Integrated Distributed Insertion Force
5. Biden Can't Assume America Beats China in a Taiwan War
6. Defense-Bill Override Paves Way for Overhaul of Anti-Money-Laundering Rules
7. How the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation ended up in Congress’s $900 billion relief bill
8. In Abrupt Reversal of Iran Strategy, Pentagon Orders Aircraft Carrier Home
9. Everything That Happened in 2020, Summed Up in Shakespeare Quotes
10. A Hasty Withdrawal From Somalia
11. How ironic: Brevard County firefighters last call of 2020 was a dumpster fire
12. Poisoner, Hacker, Meddler, Spy: How Russian Agents Ran Wild
13. Coronavirus Resistance Linked to Plenty of Sunshine
14. Why does US counter China’s initiative?
15. As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm
16. Microsoft says hackers were able to see some of its source code
17. Look at Wuhan a year after 1st acknowledgment of COVID-19
18. The Army Is Pursuing a Device That Can Turn Battlefield Ditch Water into Lifesaving IV Fluid
19. How Russia’s ‘Info Warrior’ Hackers Let Kremlin Play Geopolitics on the Cheap
20. George Orwell is out of copyright. What happens now?
1. Better understanding irregular warfare in competition
militarytimes.com · by Kevin Bilms · January 1, 2021
An important article from a current DOD official with responsibility for the new IW annex to the National Defense Strategy.
My short thesis: Irregular Warfare is the military contribution to the national level political warfare strategy. This excerpt describes that:
“Instead, the United States should consider a new approach, one that is informed by the IW Annex to the NDS. Applied with strategic focus, IW represents one way the military can apply its power complementarily with diplomatic, economic, financial and other elements of government power to secure strategic outcomes. Options exist using IW to counter maritime coercion through foreign internal defense; bolster partners and allies’ resilience against aggression through effective unconventional warfare; disrupt malign actors via robust counter-threat network capabilities; and shape the information space in politically sensitive environments through concerted military information support operations and civil affairs operations. These are far more affordable, and produce far less strain to the joint force, than relying on conventional solutions or delaying action until crisis.”
These are my thoughts which I have shared before.
Key point: We should stop the proliferation of terminology (which I think causes intellectual paralysis) and adopt Irregular Warfare as the military contribution to Political Warfare. Political warfare is how we should describe the competition space between peace and war and is the defining element in Great Power Competition. While state on state warfare is the most dangerous threat or course of action of GCP and why we must absolutely invest in deterrence and defense, Political War is the most likely threat or course of action.
And I would add with absolutely no apologies to Leon Trotsky: America may not be interested in irregular, unconventional, and political warfare but IW/UW/PW are being practiced around the world by those who are interested in them – namely the revisionist, rogue, and revolutionary powers and violent extremist organizations.
• The dominant threat or problem we face is one political warfare supported by hybrid military approaches – and these approaches are best described as irregular warfare in DODD 3000.7 - a “violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.” It states that IW consisted of UW, foreign internal defense (FID), CT, counterinsurgency, and stability operations (SO).
• So we have to be able to conduct our own form of Irregular warfare which of course includes the 5 mission sets I just named but is best described by Congress in the 2017 NDAA: Irregular Warfare is conducted “in support of predetermined United States policy and military objectives conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular forces, groups, and individuals participating in competition between state and non-state actors short of traditional armed conflict.”
· What is an example of how SOF contributes to Political Warfare through IW ? - through "unconventional deterrence" (the work of Bob Jones)- helping to harden populations and militaries of friends, partners, and allies to resist the malign influence of revisionist, rogue, and revolutionary powers and violent extremist organizations. This is exemplified by the Resistance Operating Concept pioneered by SOCEUR to counter Russian malign influence in Europe.. This model has application around the world especially if adapted for countries targeted by China's One Belt One Road initiative or in countries such as Taiwan.
It is time for us to shift from the Clausewitzian “War is politics or policy by other means” and embrace our adversaries’ views: “Politics is war by other means” or as Mao said, “Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.”
2. Rising in the East: The Evolution of the Islamic State in the Philippines
ctc.usma.edu · December 30, 2020
From West Point's Combatting Terrorism Center. The 62 page report can be downloaded here.
3. How Taiwan Plans to Stay (Mostly) Covid-Free
The New York Times · by Raymond Zhong · January 2, 2021
"No man is an island." But in the age of COVID it I may be an advantage when a country is an island. We should be asking what lessons we can we learn from Taiwan?
4. Exercise Deep Water: Working the Integrated Distributed Insertion Force
sldinfo.com · by Robbin Laird · December 31, 2020
5. Biden Can't Assume America Beats China in a Taiwan War
19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · December 31, 2020
A sober assessment. Would this embolden China and the PLA? Would it make them overconfident?
6. Defense-Bill Override Paves Way for Overhaul of Anti-Money-Laundering Rules
WSJ · by Jack Hagel · January 1, 2021
Perhaps one of the most important actions in the NDAA.
7. How the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation ended up in Congress’s $900 billion relief bill
The Washington Post · by Paul O'Donnell · January 1, 2021
8. In Abrupt Reversal of Iran Strategy, Pentagon Orders Aircraft Carrier Home
The New York Times · by David Sanger and Eric Schmitt · January 1, 2021
All warfare is based on deception?
9. Everything That Happened in 2020, Summed Up in Shakespeare Quotes
sparknotes.com · by Elodie · December 31, 2020
Shakespeare remains relevant in 2021 (at least for helping to explain 2020). I hope he is not banned the way the Odyssey was in a Massachusetts high school.
10. A Hasty Withdrawal From Somalia
WSJ · by The Editorial Board· December 31, 2020
Politics does trump strategy.
11. How ironic: Brevard County firefighters last call of 2020 was a dumpster fire
fox35orlando.com · by FOX 35 News Staff
Appropriate irony.
12. Poisoner, Hacker, Meddler, Spy: How Russian Agents Ran Wild
The Daily Beast · by SpyTalk· December 31, 2020
13. Coronavirus Resistance Linked to Plenty of Sunshine
english.chosun.com· January 2, 2021
"Let the sunshine in" from the 5th Dimension in the Age of Aquarius.
Maybe we could have massive (but socially distanced) sunbathing parties. Reopen the beaches!!
14. Why does US counter China’s initiative?
Interesting OpEd from the Donga Ilbo. A long back at a 1993 book "Can Asians Think?"
This is quite a critique of the past 20 years:
15. As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm
The New York Times · by By · January 2, 2021
Excerpts:
“When the S.V.R. broke into the unclassified systems at the State Department and White House, Richard Ledgett, then the deputy director of the National Security Agency, said the agency engaged in the digital equivalent of “hand-to-hand combat.” At one point, the S.V.R. gained access to the NetWitness Investigator tool that investigators use to uproot Russian back doors, manipulating it in such a way that the hackers continued to evade detection.
Investigators said they would assume they had kicked out the S.V.R., only to discover the group had crawled in through another door.
Some security experts said that ridding so many sprawling federal agencies of the S.V.R. may be futile and that the only way forward may be to shut systems down and start anew. Others said doing so in the middle of a pandemic would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, and the new administration would have to work to identify and contain every compromised system before it could calibrate a response.
“The S.V.R. is deliberate, they are sophisticated, and they don’t have the same legal restraints as we do here in the West,” said Adam Darrah, a former government intelligence analyst who is now director of intelligence at Vigilante, a security firm.
Sanctions, indictments and other measures, he added, have failed to deter the S.V.R., which has shown it can adapt quickly.”
16. Microsoft says hackers were able to see some of its source code
The Verge · by T.C. Sottek · December 31, 2020
17. Look at Wuhan a year after 1st acknowledgment of COVID-19
ABCNews.com · by ABC News
18. The Army Is Pursuing a Device That Can Turn Battlefield Ditch Water into Lifesaving IV Fluid
military.com · by Matthew Cox · December 31, 2020
Fascinating innovation. I hope it proves feasible.
19. How Russia’s ‘Info Warrior’ Hackers Let Kremlin Play Geopolitics on the Cheap
WSJ · by Georgi Kantchev in Moscow and Warren P. Strobel in Washington
20. George Orwell is out of copyright. What happens now?
The Guardian · by DJ Taylor · January 1, 2021
----------
"Read the best books first, otherwise you'll find you do not have time."
- Henry David Thoreau
"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are the externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals but within myself to the choices that are my own..."
- Epictetus
'Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side, In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, if he kneel not before the same alter as me."
- Thomas Moore